Police officers detained over coup charges after detaining other police officers with same accusations

Turkey’s post-coup witch hunt has reached a new level with even police officers who are tasked to go after perceived coup plotters are not sure about their own fate.

A Twitter account, famous for releasing tips from purge victims, tweeted on Monday a short passage from a prison guard, revealing that the government purge has already lost its track.

While the identity and his/her whereabouts are yet to be known, the message read: “I was a prison guard. One day, they put a new police officer in jail. A day after, another group of police officers brought the before-mentioned police officer to the prison. Two days later, this group was also put behind bars by another group of police officers. Then came the prison prosecutor.”

Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

In the currently ongoing post-coup purge, over 135,000 people, including thousands within the military, have been purged due to their real or alleged connection to the Gülen movement, according to a statement by the labor minister on Jan. 10. As of March 1, 93,248 people were being held without charge, with an additional 46,274 in pre-trial detention.